Carrot Ginger Soup

Carrot Ginger Soup

I’m over at Guinea Pigging Green today sharing the recipe for this delicious, cozy soup. Ever since the weather shifted to become cooler, I’ve been trying to soak up every minute of Fall. It’s my favourite season and it’s so short in Canada, but in Busan I’ve heard it stretches out over a few months. I now consistently need a scarf when I go out, and have started to add some layers to my outfits as well. I’ve been drinking hot beverages and gravitating towards warm meals, including soups. At home, my mom makes a soup every week for lunches and dinners and I’ve been trying to follow suit, although less reliably than once a week. This is only my second of the season, but I am hooked on the simplicity of them – both the making and the eating. My mom will laugh because I never wanted to eat much soup at home, but how things change when you’re living on your own!

Carrot Ginger Soup

I’m excited to start making soup more often and eating it in the cool evenings after work. This one is perfect because it has a little bit of a kick to it from the ginger, garlic and black pepper. Plus it’s bright orange! So it’s beautiful to boot.

You can find the recipe right here.

Classic Falafels

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Today feels like a day when I need to count my blessings. I was just editing the latest episode of Guinea Pigging Green (out tomorrow!) and when it was over our episode about The Line started playing and I just let it run. (Side note: is it weird to listen to your own podcast? I think the jury’s still out on that one.)

I needed to hear it. I’ve been feeling caught up in my head and stressed out lately, and the idea of the line hasn’t been on my mind very much over the last couple of weeks. I’d also forgotten that we’d talked a lot about practicing gratitude in the episode, and I think I needed that reminder. I’m so grateful for that healthy dose of soul talk and perspective with Laura this morning. Life has been moving really fast lately and it’s been easy to let my automatic reactions carry me along, but being present and refocusing is so much harder. Even so, I have so very much to be grateful for.

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As I was listening to the episode, I was making falafels. They remind me of home: our big wooden kitchen table, my mom’s delicious garlic sauce, people coming and going. I’d never made falafels before today (heretofore I’ve just purchased them premade from Costco or President’s Choice) but they were so easy and really delicious. They aren’t deep-fried, so of course they’re less crunchy-crispy, but since I haven’t had falafels in months, they were perfect.

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I loosely followed this recipe from Oh She Glows, and it worked out perfectly. I substituted bread crumbs for ground flax, plus added maybe a 1/4 cup more breadcrumbs than she called for since I was using an Asian-style breadcrumb (more like Panko) that seemed a bit less dense than what I’d normally use. I also used chives instead of the fresh cilantro and parsley she calls for, because those particular fresh herbs are hard to come by in Korea. The chives gave the falafels such a beautiful green colour!

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On the side, I made a little garlic yogurt sauce and just chopped some tomatoes and cucumbers, mixed together with a bit of salt and lemon juice. I ended up eating some of my falafels in a whole wheat pita with the sauce and salad all mixed in with a bit of extra lemon juice, and it was the perfect lunch.

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Again, the recipe for these yummy falafels is right here. Enjoy!

Fresh Summer Rolls with Peanut Sauce

Summer Rolls

I posted a “recipe” for summer rolls – aka non-deep-fried spring rolls – a few years ago, but I recently developed a new favourite ingredient combo (this time fully vegan) so I thought they’d be worth posting about again. I’ve been taking these into work with me lately and even though they often fall apart by dinnertime, they’re so tasty that I usually don’t even mind. It’s like mini packages of salad! So fresh and so clean.

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My current favourite mix of ingredients is tofu, leeks (or green onions), peanuts, red pepper, tofu and sweet chili sauce. I don’t need to handhold you here – just chop them all up! It’s all raw, so this is a very easy meal to prepare. Soak your rice paper wraps in warm water for around ten seconds, then spread them out on a flat surface and pile everything on! Like so:

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Then you want to tuck up the bottom, fold in the sides, and roll it all up like a burrito. It gets easier and tidier with practice, but sometimes I still end up with a floppy mess. One time, I just wrapped the whole mess in another rice paper, which was surprisingly an excellent fix!

DSC_3431I’ve been eating these with a homemade peanut sauce, which really makes them that much better. I usually half this recipe and season it to taste (since I don’t have sesame oil at the moment). It has good proportions though, and the resulting sauce has a great texture.

DSC_3532Yummy, right? This is exactly the kind of food I want to eat when it’s really hot outside. No standing over a hot stove please! My apartment doesn’t need to be stuffier than it already is.

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You could definitely customize this “recipe” in any way you want to! Different vegetables, maybe even some fruit like pineapple or mango, and fresh herbs would of course be wonderful. I’m sure I’ll be mixing it up quite a bit as the summer progresses. Happy eating!

Chocolate Nut Granola

Chocolate Nut GranolaI’m the kind of person who can eat the same thing every single day for as long as it takes for me to get sick of it. When I find something that works, I tend to call it a day and will find myself making it over and over until something else grabs my attention. I just like the simplicity of having a routine and not having to spend too much time thinking about what I’ll make.

For a while, every day my breakfasts were green smoothies with a piece of peanut butter toast and my lunches were BBQ tofu tacos – dinners are usually where I get some variety. Since I’ve been in Korea, my breakfasts most days are granola with soy milk and my lunches are usually eggs on toast. Boring but happy, that’s me!

DSC_3006I had been buying a Quaker’s granola at Costco, but it’s a bit too sweet and since I haven’t been going to Costco that often, I needed another option. Back in April 2013 when Elise posted that she’d been eating nut granola for breakfast every morning, I was intrigued and made a mental note to make it myself. Finally this morning I did, and already I’m a total goner.

This stuff isn’t overly sweet and has a nice hint of salt, which I love. I made it according to this recipe from Delighted Momma but with only 1/2 cup of coconut oil as opposed to the full cup that she calls for. Even then, I could probably cut down the amount a little more. I didn’t roast my nuts or bake my granola because I don’t have an oven, but even so I’m really happy with how it turned out. It’s filling and absolutely delicious. I ate it with some plain yogurt and am going to try it with soy milk tomorrow for breakfast. I have a feeling I will definitely be making this again. And again, and again, knowing me.

DSC_3010-editSpeaking of delighted mamas, I am especially happy for my own today. She has worked so hard for the last few months getting my childhood home ready to sell, and happily it sold almost instantly, for more than expected, to a lovely young family who cried when they heard it was theirs. We are all really happy. My younger sister laughed and called me a hippie yogi when I said that it felt like there was a lot of good energy involved: that maybe the buyers could sense the love and laughter of our house, and that it’s so nice that we are passing it off to a young family the way ours was when we moved in. But that’s how it seems. It’s a good thing. (Anyways, I think she secretly loves that I’m a hippie yogi and I love that she’s practical and down-to-earth.) I wish I could have been there celebrating with them in the kitchen I grew up in, but since I couldn’t be, I’m thankful for the magic of FaceTime. Happy days!

Processed with VSCOcam with s3 presetOnce again, the recipe for this delicous granola is here.